Pooh problems

This is regarding Spanky Horowitz's restaurant review last week. Though I realize that the Walt Disney Corporation has successfully managed to almost completely eradicate the memory of Mr. Alan Milne's brilliant writing, when quoting directly from any author it is best to credit them.

The dialogue between Pooh and Piglet that Mr. Horowitz attributes to Benjamin Hoff's The Tao of Pooh, actually appear in Winnie the Pooh, by A.A. Milne, first published in 1926.

While I appreciate Mr. Hoff's work, he has never, to my knowledge, dared to claim ownership of Mr. Milne's words.

--Ella Earp-Lynch

Sympathy for the suburbs

What was the point of Gravenor's article entitled "The myth of suburban superiority" [Feb. 22]? Was he trying to impress us with his vast knowledge of trivia? Was he trying to convince us that forced mergers are a good thing? He didn't seem to have the gall to take a strong position one way or the other, but he certainly implied that the City of Montreal has traditionally been better run than the suburbs. This, in turn, implies that if the City of Montreal ran the whole island, the current suburbs would be better off. This alone is insulting to anyone who's lived both in Montreal proper and in a suburb. I grew up in Ville St-Laurent and took our libraries, our roads, our garbage and snow collection and our democracy completely for granted. I never realized how much, until I moved to Montreal. I don't care what scandals the mayor of St-Laurent got caught up in, all I know is that the city was actually comfortable to live in. Roads were impeccable, city services very adequate and there were enough green space and parks. When a major project was proposed--like building a new school or moving the community centre--our family spoke with the neighbours about it and at city hall, everyone made the final decisions together.

Now, living in Montreal, I find the libraries hardly have any books and they all keep different, very sparse schedules. I got a concussion last fall from hitting a huge pothole on my bike, only to find out that the pothole repair budget will be frozen for three years. I've seen countless insane, stupid projects get the green light from Bourque's yes-men, despite the often unanimous protests at the city's "public hearings." After going to public hearings a few times myself, I realized why no one bothers going: the councillors practically laugh at you, much less listen to you. The city seems to wait a week to see if the ice will melt before salting the roads. There are parking lots and empty lots everywhere, but still 150-year-old buildings get demolished without much hesitation. And I won't even begin to list the political scandals that stretch, literally, from here to China. The fact is that any city administration that is too large will be inefficient and unresponsive to the real needs of citizens. Whether current suburban mayors or a new mega-mayor ends up running the megacity, its mere size will guarantee that it won't be run well. (Just look at Toronto, which may soon go bankrupt because of their mergers.)

The only people who stand to benefit from our forced merger are large multinationals eyeing the island-wide privatization of municipal services, as well as global investors wanting simplified access to our sizeable market. No doubt the PQ is also happy it will get to screw around with the English-speaking suburbs. I suppose Kristian Gravenor will be happy to see those supposedly incompetently run suburbs bite the dust. I'm sure he'll have a lot of scandal-watching to do once Mega-Bourque is the king of us all.

--Louis Rastelli

Vive la différence

I was in a coffee shop, sipping a cup of java and reading the latest edition of the Mirror when I saw the article Chris Barry did on Jere Gillis [People, March 8]. It's about time you did something like that. The mainstream press is so anti-anything-new-or-different such as Scientology or minority ideologies that it's expected that we can turn to the Mirror to hear about alternatives. Also, I didn't know that Margie Gillis was related to Jere Gillis. So, thanks.

--Darrel Schlereth